Mayor Ed Lee holding the first in a series of town hall city budget meetings at Tenderloin Community School, in San Francisco, Calif., with supervisor Jane Kim on Wednesday, March 16, 2011. The city is facing a $380 million deficit.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Mayor Ed Lee holding the first in a series of town hall city budget...

There's no need to break out the chicken suits. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee plans to be the first mayor to attend "question time."

Lee is expected to appear Tuesday before the Board of Supervisors for a formal policy discussion on city issues, the culmination of three ballot measures and more than four years of political fighting to get the mayor to appear monthly before the city's legislative body for questions.

But don't expect a rowdy back-and-forth like the prime minister's question time in the British Parliament, the inspiration for San Francisco's discourse.

Rules that Lee's office negotiated with the board earlier this year require most questions to be provided almost a week in advance and limit discussion to five minutes per question.

"The rules about the nature of the interaction are so all-encompassing that anyone looking for a knock-down, drag-out heavyweight fight will be disappointed," said Alex Clemens, a political consultant, lobbyist and former supervisor's aide who has closely watched city government for years.

"It will be light sparring, very anticlimactic and somewhat cordial," Clemens said.

That would be a far cry from the political theater opponents of the idea have warned of for years. Supporters, including former Supervisor Chris Daly, say the measure has always been about transparent government and improved dialogue between the mayor and board.

Voters in 2006 approved a nonbinding measure urging the mayor to appear before the board each month, but then-Mayor Gavin Newsom refused to do so, saying the measure was a vehicle for supervisors to score cheap political points. Newsom held a series of town hall meetings instead, where critics wearing chicken suits dogged him to suggest he was scared to go before the board.

Voters rejected a binding question-time ballot measure in 2007 but approved one in November 2010, when Newsom was elected lieutenant governor.

Lee, the former city administrator appointed by the board in January to serve out the remaining year of Newsom's mayoral term, says he's happy to go before supervisors to discuss city matters.

Questions on the table for the first session include budget cuts, dealing with state inmates transferred to counties and creating a true transit hub at the Balboa Park BART station.

"The mayor thought these were good and thoughtful questions that deserve a thorough response," said Christine Falvey, spokeswoman for the mayor. "He is looking forward to attending the board meeting and having a good dialogue."